These cute zipper pouches are a darling gift to give someone special this Mother’s Day. This tutorial is written by my good friend Jennifer. Jennifer is the one who takes me on crazy adventures to find fabric all over Southern California. She is an amazing sewist and writes a blog called Jennifer Sews Again.

Her tutorial for these zipper pouches is great – I followed each step and my pouches turned out perfect! These amazing fabrics are from Blend’s Modern Eclectic line. I love the prints!!!

I love the lining! What’s great about these zipper pouches is they unzip all the way so you can have full access to your items. I always take mine when I travel.

Cheers! I am so excited to be participating in Riley Blake’s Union Jack Blog Hop! I am in love with the fun colors of this Union Jack panel! My friend, Karen, loves all things British: Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, the Royal Family, Sticky Toffee Pudding, Fish ‘n Chips, Beef Wellington, The Cure & Adele….her husband served a mission in England, AND here is Harper, their adorable baby girl with a trendy British name! Harper is the cutest baby ever and this quilt is for her.

Sew into strip sets of (5) total. I just picked random colors and didn’t try and lay out the pattern. Make 3 sets with white beginning and ending and 3 sets with prints beginning and ending as pictured:

Press toward the prints.

Cut the strip sets into 2.5″ sub sets:

Make 2 piles: one with the white on the outside and one with the patterned fabric on the outside:

Now comes the fun part – grab and sew! Once again, I didn’t try and lay out a pattern, I just grabbed 2 strip sets and sewed together. Make sure the intersections of the seams sandwich together nicely.

Make 9 of these blocks: 5 blocks with patterned corners, 4 blocks with white corners.

Fussy cut one of the Union Jack blocks, leaving a 1/4″ seam allowance around the print.

Find a font you like and print it in reverse on one of these Heat n Bond EZ print sheets – you could also use a silhouette, but I am not that advanced!

Cut out the letters and peel off the backing paper. Cut a piece of white fabric 9.25″ wide (the width of the Union Jack) x 19.5″ Place the letters and iron in place. Straight stitch around each letter twice.

Sew the Union Jack to the white fabric.

Lay out your blocks in this pattern: 2 rows of 3 blocks, then the Union Jack strip, then 1 row of 3 blocks. Square up the white fabric if there is a little excess on the end.

My 14 year old and her friends are obsessed with the Frozen movie! They have seen it 3 times, they spend all their time drawing images from the movie and listen to the songs over and over. For Christmas I thought it would be cute to get them each a new sketch book and make a case for it out of Frozen fabric. I am not big into “Character” fabric, but I really liked this print.

I used my Coupon Pouch Tutorial and changed the dimensions to 26″ x 15″. Everything else is exactly the same!

It’s that time of year again…..YIKES!!! I can’t believe the children are headed back to school. I am such a summer person!!! I designed this keychain for Therm O Web. They are super cute and easy to make – you can give them to your teachers or clip them on your child’s backpack! Click HERE for the tutorial!

I came up with the idea for this quilt when I was invited to a baby shower for a friend who loves going to Monster Jam. I wanted a cute, modern take on the monster truck and this what I came up with. To begin, select fat quarters of various prints. I choose gray, white, black and green. You can choose any prints or patterns you like. I only had 8 different fabrics, but I would have liked 12.

Next, cut your fabric into 12.5″ strips, then sub-cut into the following measurements:

Do this with each of your fabrics. Now mix up the pieces and sew the following 12″ (finished) block: (quarter inch seams)

You want the top and bottom pieces to be the same fabric, and the center to be different. Press the seams toward the 6.5″ piece.

I love personalizing quilts, especially if they are gifts. To add a name to the quilt block, print the name using your favorite word processing program. I tried several different fonts until I got the one I liked. If you can, reverse the image when you print. Take your Heat N Bond® Lite and trace the reversed name in pencil. Iron the piece of Heat N Bond® with the name to the WRONG side of your fabric. Then, cut the name out. Peel the backing off and arrange the letters how you want on your quilt block. Finally press to attach it.

I outlined the letters using a straight stitch. I went around each letter twice to give it the “sketch” feel….which I love.

After you make 11 of these blocks, lay them out. For the truck applique block, cut a white square 12.5″x 12.5″

Next, follow the same technique using Heat N Bond® Lite to applique the monster truck to the quilt block. Click HERE for the truck pattern.

To finish the quilt, sew the blocks together to form rows and sew the rows together. Quilt as desired

Note: These are big blocks which help make this a fast, easy quilt to put together in a day. If you would like the same look, but with smaller blocks here are the measurements:

Today I am a Contributor over at Ginger Snap Crafts! I love Ginger’s blog – she has such great crafts, ideas, and tutorials. I am sharing this fun tutorial for altering a Hoodie Sweatshirt. They are so much fun to make! Click HERE to go to the tutorial.

I needed a few gifts and whipped up some zipper pouches. I have made lots and lots of zipper bags. This is the one I always go back to. It holds a lot but isn’t huge. I have probably made over 50 of these!

Are you ready??

Prepare the bag:

Iron the fusible fleece to the wrong side of the outer bag fabric.

Measure a 1 1/2″ square and cut a notch out of the bottom corners of the outer pieces and the lining pieces. This will create the pleat in the bottom of the bag.

Prepare the zipper:

I like to put little tabs on my zipper so the zipper is not directly sewn into the seam of the bag. It reduces bulk and helps it lay flat. I always measure my tabs larger then cut them down.

As you can see, I like to buy larger zippers than I need. You can always cut them down for smaller projects!

Cut off the metal ends of the zipper.

Sew one of the prepared tabs to the end of the zipper. Backstitch several times over the zipper teeth.

Now measure over and sew the tab on the opposite end of the zipper. There should be 1″ of tab on each side. The excess will be cut off in a minute.

Use your zipper foot and sew along the zipper.

Now you do the same process to the other side of the zipper. Place the zipper face down on the right side of the outer fabric. Line up the edges. Layer the lining on top right side down. (pictured below)

Sew the zipper using the zipper foot.

Finish the bag:

Top stitch about 1/8″ next to both sides of the zipper. This will hold the fabric in place and it won’t catch in the zipper.